philly

Christmas Spending

I just tallied everything up and I just poured around $270 into gifts for the fam and Lady. I think it's all worth it. I hope my presents bring smiles to the fam when I see them all on Saturday. I haven't spent this much money in a few years, just haven't had it. Now I don't. Oh well. 'Tis the season for giving!

And now I just noticed I had a $1 coupon for Robin's Books where I got my cousin a gift. Arg.

Christmas Presents

Did a nice chunk of Christmas shopping last night. Lady and I had our early Christmas together last night. We went out to La Fourno [South/6th] to cash in the free entrees we got for my referral of her's to join 12th St Gym. Deeee-licious. A review will come sooner than later for La Fourno. We exchanged gifts too. I got her a photo album and an 8" x 10" frame. She's been wanting an album to file her piles and piles of photos. Now, she can have 150 of them organized. For the 8" x 10", she picked this shot, which is also one of my favorite shots. She got me what felt like a tiny pillow. It was rectangular and soft. I opened it up and to my delight, it was a 365-day calendar of America: The Book, the book The Daily Show put out about a year and a half ago. Awesome. I was actually thinking of getting her a similar gift of Bush-isms. That would've been reminiscent of the Christmas where we got each other THE SAME EXACT GIFT of Naked Pictures of Famous People by Jon Stewart. Now that was funny. We were both cracking up for a good long while.

I've decided to give photos as presents to most of the fam. For my Mom & Dad, I printed an 8" x 10" of them at my sister's wedding and a nice Umbra box frame with a floating triple mat I picked up at Matthew Izzo [Pine/9th]. For my sister and brother in law, I picked up Fahrenheit 9/11 on DVD from TLA Video [Spruce/16th]. I also prepared a wedding photo album for them with eight 8" x 10" shots and about twenty 4" x 6" shots. Still finalizing the layout for that one. And I gotta spray mount them to the pages tonight.

For my nephew, I got him a Gameboy Advance game. Apparently, he's all into Star Wars and his Gameboy. They're also going on a trip to Disney World on Christmas Day so I figured a game would kill three birds with one stone. I got him the Revenge of the Sith game which will hopefully occupy him on the planeride and any boring parts of the trip. I still don't know what to get my neice, arg. For my brother and sis in law, I printed out an 8" x 10" of their family from my sister's wedding, I'll be getting another frame from Matthew Izzo tonight after work [they're having a sale!].

For my cousin Jee Young, she sent out a wishlist of books. I'm headed over to Robin's to see what they have in stock from her list. I also got her a 5" x 7" of her and her younger twin brothers at my sister's wedding. For the twins, they get 5" x 7" framed photos of that same photo to bring back to their fan-cay Ivy League schools. I dunno what to get their parents though. My mom's asked me to get a mock turtleneck sweater for my grandma, but I have no idea what/where to get one of those. I don't pay attention to sweaters in stores, I don't wear them. Maybe I'll pick one up on my mom's recommendation back in NY.

And it just hit me that I'll have to hoof it from Penn Station over to Grand Central on Friday night when I get into NYC on the train. With all these presents, plus a bag of luggage, plus my laptop, plus my photo gear. Hrmph. Maybe I'll cab it. Maybe the transit strike will be over and I'll be able to take the 7/S.

Fabric Shears

Anybody out there know of a place to get a nice pair of fabric shears in Philly? That's what my Mom has requested for Christmas. I got a pair of nice heavy shears for my grandma a couple years ago from a place back home in NY in Westchester, but I have no idea of any fabric stores here.

I'm looking for a heavy pair of those nice stainless steel ones about 8" - 10" in length. I paid $35 for the pair for my grandma.

Back From Thanksgiving in NY

Back from Thanksgiving in Long Island with the fam. I took the train [SEPTA to NJT] to NYC and hopped on the subway out to Astoria to my sis and bro-in-law's new place to hitch a ride out to Manhasset Hills to meet up with about thirty-five or forty of my family members for a huge feast. Tons of delicious Korean food [nothing like home cooking!] and some turkey [it was dry and I only had a bite] and tons of alcohol. Good grief they drank a shitload of scotch. They finished off a bottle fo Glennlivet 12 and a bottle of Dalwhinnie 15. I was too stuffed to eat. I took a shitload of photos throughout the night that I now have to go through and email out to the fam.

Moving - Not Me Edition

Today, my sister is moving. She lives in NYC, the Upper East Side. I love her apartment. I've stayed there many times dogsitting. She's making the move, with her new husband, out to Astoria Queens. Quite a differnt area. They also just leased a car. Times a changing. My city-girl big sis, moving out to Astoria, married. Still only a fifteen minute ride in on the train, but Queens!

Wedding Photos 2

My second set of five is up on my photoblog. One last set of six for tomorrow coming to round out the final edit of photos from my sister's wedding.

Wedding Photos

I've whittled down the edit of 70, from 250 or so, down to 16. The first set of the second round of culling is up here starting with the pre-wedding photos. We had to get there three hours before the wedding because I was to be in the processional thingie and for family photos. There was plenty of time for candids of the fam. Two more from the series will be up in the next few days.

That's my nephew Justin, 5, and my neice Emily, 1, pictured above.

While you're there, take a click through the rest of my photoblog to see my view of Philadelphia.

Enjoy.

Now to re-edit the selections into CMYK to make an album of photos to give my sis and new bro as a gift. I'll stick in a little cashola in there as well of course. Weddings are expensive... for everyone involved.

My Sister's Wedding Photos

Here's the flickr set of seventy photos from my sister's wedding which was last Saturday. Included are shots of the fam, my bro with some Cristaaaal, my mom's bling, groomsmen fooling around and of course, bar/bat mitzvah belonging plastic blowup guitars!

Wedding Photos

I'm gonna take my time on these. I've edited them down to about 70 right now that I very much like. I'm not going to mass upload all 70 without retouching them to flickr just yet though. I'm gonna do a little bit of tweaking here and there. I'll probably end up posting closer to 20-25 on my photoblog so I want the fam to be able to see as many as possible that are nice and balanced or whatever.

My Sister's Getting Married

The wedding was wonderful. My sister's married! And now, I have another big brother. The ceremony was all of fifteen or twenty minutes [neither of them are religious in the least and don't attend church] which was so awesome. The cocktail hour was noyce and the reception was a blast and very Bar/Bat Mitzvah like which was odd.

What do I mean by Bar/Bat Mitzvah like? I mean they handed out all this stuff. Tambourines, plastic hats, sunglasses. I thought to myself, "I wonder if they're gonna break out the kid favorite blow up plastic guitars" and then... They handed out the guitars. Oh man. Julie and Marc's joint Bat/Bar Mitzvah 2005! And to further the Bar/Bat Mitzvah theory, it was in Long Island and it was at a country club. But there was no Manischewitz to be found. I'm partial to the white concord grape.

Mazel Tov.